Friday, July 27, 2012

zzzzzzz

‘…When I was a young lad,
My fortune was bad—

Pshaw! This is not the tune it goes to." Here he
fell fast asleep, and sooner or later all his companions in misfortune followed
his example.

The benches intended for the repose of the soldiers of
the guard, afforded the prisoners convenience enough to lie down, though their
slumbers, it may be believed, were neither sound nor undisturbed. But when
daylight was but a little while broken, the explosion of gunpowder which took
place, and the subsequent fall of the turret to which the mine was applied,
would have awakened the Seven Sleepers 1, or
Morpheushimself.
The smoke, penetrating through the windows, left them at no loss for the cause
of the din.

1)Seven Christian youths who are said to have concealed
themselves in a cavern near Ephesus during a persecution in the third century,
and to have fallen asleep there, not awaking until two or three hundred years
later, when Christianity had become the religion of the empire...'

Waking the
Seven Sleepers would have been quite a task.
The seven youths of Ephesus woke in the 5th century,
according to the story, two centuries after they began snoring. July 27th is the feast day, so grab six friends, and enjoy a nap. Scott’s text above comes from “Woodstock”.